


The Winter of Our Content

by ravendiana



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, M/M, Other, Snowed In, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 11:55:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28956072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravendiana/pseuds/ravendiana
Summary: A much belated gift.A small town, the worst winter since the 14th century, no powers at all "until it's time," and a Demon half frozen in the snow.  Who's plan was this?
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 38
Collections: Grow Better / Scribbling Vaguely Downwards - Holiday Swap '20





	The Winter of Our Content

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redundant_angel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redundant_angel/gifts).



Lewes, South Downs, 1836

Aziraphale looked around the tidy cottage and decided that things could be worse. He had come to dislike leaving London, and his new[1 ] bookshop, but the South Downs wasn't so terribly far. He'd been sent out in enough time to hire a well sprung carriage for the trip, and to have a few likely lads from the village lay in a goodly supply of wood at the back of the cottage. Some of the coal in the well stocked scupper found its way into the rather less well stocked homes at the base of the cliff the cottage perched on. He'd also purchased quite a lot of the more extravagant provisions in the area to lay in, overpaying, but leaving aside the basics. 

Heaven's orders had been in the form of the new normal. Both overly precise and annoyingly vague. Go to This village, at This time, stay there until "it's time" and don't use any miracles until "you'll know." Which was no kind of use at all. He was never given enough to really help. It was easy to guess it would have something to do with the dreadful weather. It had hardly stopped snowing since October and they were already almost into Advent. He was far from the only one to leave the city that had become a warren of icy tunnels. That same city was probably full of people who also needed help.

He put a stop to that line of thinking before it went places it shouldn't. One didn't question heaven, it just wasn't done. (It was done by humans all the time and demons, of course, but that was different. Quite different.) He had rather hoped to get down and mingle a bit, so he would have some idea of who in the town he might be there to aid, but the wind was already driving all the locals indoors again. He instead turned to shelving the few books[2 ] he'd brought to keep him company during his sojourn of unknown length. Time to read was never amiss, at the least.

Aziraphale was putting down the slim volume of Blake when the feeling that had been brushing his mind for some time came clear. There was a demonic presence nearby. It was hard to tell, at first, if it was coming nearer or going away. He briefly wondered if this was why he'd been sent here, but no. This energy was far too familiar. Crowley. Crowley coming nearer but the feeling of him growing faint. Aziraphale shot to his feet and rushed to the door.

Even the raging winds could not completely blow away the drifting snow, which was already higher than his knees, and had been growing steadily. Already the cottage was the only feature visible on the cliff. In the dark it would be all too easy to become turned around. But he followed the sense of Crowley unerringly to the slumped lump of black slowly disappearing under the sea of white.

"Crowley!" He rang his hands over the prone form. "Get up! You cannot sleep there!" He knew he was being absurd. Standing in the snow berating an unconscious demon. Yet, he'd never actually touched Crowley. In over five thousand years, they had never even touched. He wasn't sure what would happen. Looking at the collapsed demon he was increasingly sure what would happen if he didn't try. He reasoned that they would still not really be touching, not through all the layers they both wore against the weather.

"Right then, up you go," He scooped Crowley into his arms. The way he felt in his arms was another thing added to the list of things Aziraphale carefully did not think about[3 ]. For all his gangly length, Crowley seemed to fit perfectly, head resting against his shoulder in a way that felt far too comfortable for something so foreign. He made his way back to the cottage as quickly as he could, as if that wood and thatch could avert the eyes of heaven.

Once he had them inside, he built up the fire. Crowley's hat and greatcoat joined his own on the drying pegs, and his coat as well. His shirt and waistcoat seemed to be mostly dry, as did his trousers, protected by the high hessian riding boots, soon to join the rest of the drying clothes. Aziraphale built up a nest of blankets before the fire and laid Crowley out on them to warm. He slid the kettle on it's bar over the fire for tea and waited. Since Crowley hadn't discorperated he should wake up on his own. Aziraphale was content to sit and watch over his sleep.

Crowley didn't wake with sound or movement, but rather with a change to the quality of his stillness. It was a wary sort of waking, that again made Aziraphale wonder how he managed to sleep at all.

"You are quite safe, dear boy, though it was a near enough thing." At the sound of his words Crowley sagged in a lazy roll to look up at him from the floor and a manner that was entirely disarming. His customary dark lenses had come off in his sleep and Aziraphale was drawn into that honey golden gaze.

"Looks like this time you saved me, Angel." Crowley's voice was raspy and Aziraphale jumped to hand him the waiting tea, kept warm near the fire.

"Yes, well. Lend a hand where needed and all." Crowley's answering smile said that he was rather sure there was more to it than the arrangement, but would let Aziraphale call it that if he liked. It further implied that things might be all together more interesting if he didn't. Crowley's smiles were very eloquent. Aziraphale looked away. 

"I found you in quite a state. Whatever were you doing walking on the chalk in those completely inappropriate boots?" 

Crowley scowled. "I hadn't meant to be walking at all. The problem with demon horses, aside from being obvious and uncomfortable, is that they are also demons. Which means they fight you every step. I got distracted sensing you out of London and the blighter took the chance to toss me. Would have sent me into the drink if the river weren't frozen solid."  
Aziraphale winced, glad that Heaven usually found well tempered, placid beasts acceptable angelic mounts. 

"I'll have to call up another one to get back to town." Crowley continued.

"I can't say that would be a very good idea right here." Aziraphale said.

"Why not?"

"Heaven is keeping tabs again, as it were." Crowley startled. "Oh not actually watching," Aziraphale gestured to wave away the notion. "But I've been told to stay put just here and not use any miraculous power until such time as I obviously should. So if you pull on your powers, they are sure to notice."

"How in the blazes am I supposed to get back to London then?" Crowley asked. "It's not as if I can just stay here."

"As it happens, I think that's precisely what you will have to do."

Crowley raised an eyebrow.

"As you said there doesn't seem to be a way to get you back."

The second eyebrow joined the first.

"I don't know precisely how long, of course, but I'm laid in some stores, and we don't actually need to eat, if it comes to that." Aziraphale was twisting his handkerchief in his hands by the time he finished speaking. Crowley sat up straighter.

"You are proposing that we share this house, in nearly total isolation, for an unknown amount of time?" 

"I…, Yes. That's about the shape of it." Aziraphale answered. He really should let the fire burn down a bit now, judging by the heat in his face it had gotten far warmer than it needed to be. Crowley's smile contained volumes[4 ]. 

"Well, if you're insisting, far be it from me to refuse such hospitality." Crowley eased back down into the nest. "Truly, Angel, I am deeply glad not to be headed back out into that. I don't think I've seen weather this bad in England since the 14th century. I think snow must have been Hastur's idea." 

"Indeed? I am quite fond of it, when there is less of it. All things in moderation, as the wise man said."

Crowley snorted, "Wise man? Hesiod? He was a ratbag bastard."

Which set them off on gossip and debate about people no one else currently on the planet knew personally. It was the sort of conversation they could have with no one but each other. Evenings and afternoons scattered across decades and centuries left great stores of experience of millennia uncommunicated, and they talked well through the night.

Aziraphale made up a room for Crowley, since he did like to sleep at times. It was a strange feeling to say goodnight and yet know he was still in the house. His presence a pressure on the mind, but one that felt comfortable, like a heavy blanket. He even loaned Crowley a dressing gown and robe when he expressed a wish to wash his clothing[5 ]. It was strange to see the demon engaged in such a homely task, his hair falling to frizz in the steam of the tub he'd set before the kitchen fire. Chatting away as he worked with more deftness than Aziraphale would have shown. 

"You always were a posh sod," Crowley said when he commented on it. "You live cheek by jowl down in the stews, folks notice if you never seem to wash your clothes."

"Even there, I believe it's not uncommon for unmarried men to engage a laundress." Aziraphale bristled, though admittedly he had only done laundry when living as a monk. 

"Some do, yeah. Been a laundress a time or two. You can get into all sorts of places with your eyes down and a load of washing in your arms." Which lead to tales of items left in bedchambers they shouldn't have been in, most of which were more hilarious than actually cruel. 

Even with his own clothing cleaned, Crowley kept the borrowed clothes. He claimed to not see the point of dressing for public when the steadily growing snow was now halfway up the window panes. It left Aziraphale with a fluttering feeling to see him emerge from his room in the morning, rumpled and wearing Aziraphale's clothing, the dressing gown open halfway down his chest. He would shamble out, fixated entirely on the teapot, and sit hunched over his cup. 

In all their long years, they had never spent more than a day at a time in company together. Yet after two weeks of isolation, they found that they feel into a sort of pattern with each other. Once Crowley had been revived by tea they would inspect the stores and work together to prepare one overly complicated meal a day, mostly to fill time. They would talk long into the night. Some nights these talks were lubricated by a cask of wine or two. Just as often they were quiet sober conversations, though they avoided moral philosophy by mutual understanding.

When the snow completely covered the windows time seemed to fade away, leaving them feeling an echo of before it had existed. Before the war, perhaps. Before they had been on different sides, even if they hadn't known each other then. Within these snowbound walls it felt like they were only themselves, without past or future. And Aziraphale found how well those selves fit into each other. The careful spaces between them grew smaller as if they were pressed together by the weight of the snow around them. 

Christmas brought only more bad weather. The winds howled loud enough to be heard even through the snow that had crested the eves. The wood pile, that at first seemed so excessive, had run low. They shut up the kitchen and Crowley dragged the mattress from his room into the small sitting room, the only room they continued to heat. He rebuilt an even more elaborate nest than the one Aziraphale had made him that first night. That night they drank a toast to the poor young man who had only wanted people to be kind to each other. 

"Even if it's not his birthday at all. That was in April." Crowley groused.

"I'm sure it's the thought that counts, my dear." Aziraphale replied. He found he very much wanted to pat Crowley's cheek as he said it. He didn't, but he compromised with the magnetic pull and slid down from the settle to join Crowley in the nest. He pulled the blankets around himself to keep some barrier between them. Bundled together like courting puritans, it was still intimate, despite the barriers of cloth separating them. Crowley leaned into the space between them. 

They stayed curled that way all the next day, only emerging to keep the fire stoked or to refill their cups from the wine they kept mulling near it. When Crowley slipped into sleep his head fell forward into the spot on his shoulder it had laid when Aziraphle had first carried him into the cottage. The angle lay very still, wrapping blankets and his arms around the (his) sleeping demon. All through the night he watched him sleep, following the play of the firelight on the burnished copper of his hair. It was strange, he did not think he'd even spent a more contented night on Earth than this one.

By morning the wind had died. Crowley's eyes opened and he looked up, face so very close to Aziraphale's own. The moment hung, full to bursting with possibility, until it was shattered by a great Crack and a deafening roar. Light, blinding after it's absence, spilled through the windows and the desperate prayers of terrified humans lanced through Aziraphale's mind. He only realized he was moving when he reached the door. He looked back at Crowley, "It seems I do know when." 

Crowley nodded, then made a shooing gesture. "Go, Angel. There are kids down there." He'd barely finished speaking before Aziraphale was out and gone. The heavenly power that had lain unused flowed out of him, strengthening beams near to collapse, burrowing tunnels of air, wrapping small bodies in just a touch of extra warmth. He reached the bottom of the cliff and saw the entire row of homes that had huddled in it's shelter were gone, washed away in a sea of white, broken beams strewn across the street and river.

He joined the villagers in a day of desperate digging. More power spilled from him with words and touches of encouragement. The people found they could keep working long after they thought they would have given out. They worked through the day digging people out. As the light began to fade Aziraphale felt hellish power unrun under his own. The lives he had felt fading below the great mass of snow were again swept away. Not snuffed out, but somehow simply gone. When the first body was found, he alone knew it had never held life.

Hours later he was unsurprised to find the cottage cold and empty. The robe was folded on the settle, a scrap of paper folded on it.

A,

Turns out I had a job of work myself. Someone wanted to make a deal. I added relocation to survival, and so am gone. This was the winter of our content. I'll come to the shop soon.

C.

P.S. I've kept the dressing gown.

Aziraphale held the letter, his heart still. The idyll had ended. Things he'd never thought to do or feel, things he'd not yet done but saw he might have. 

"Aziraphale!" The voice behind him made his hand spasm, conveniently crushing the incriminating page. He turned with the best smile he could manage.

"Gabriel, how good of you to come."

"Well I had to tell you how well you'd done! You got almost half of them, and since we didn't get any upstairs you got all the right ones." 

"Ah, the right ones, yes. Jolly good, that." Four of the false bodies had been children. Gabriel continued to smile at him.

He looked briefly at the nest still on the floor. "Don't they have different rooms for that? Nevermind, you are back on detached assignment, so you can get back to whatever it is you do." With another flash of teeth the archangel was gone. 

Aziraphale sat heavily on the bared settle. First the near miss at the bookstore opening, and now this. What had felt like daring possibility moments ago now chilled him worse than the hours in the snow. He could not let his foolish fancies lead them both to ruin. He would go back to London, and all would go back to the way it had been. It was all there could be. It was for the best he'd remembered that. He threw the note into the fire.

~~~~~

Lewes, South Downs, 2021 

The Bentley purred along the A26 as they drove along to wherever had taken Crowley's fancy. It was so good to be able to go out again, they rarely bothered with a destination. Crowley had one hand on the wheel, the other arm laid across the seat backs. The discovery that if he drove at a reasonable rate, Aziraphale would lean into that space rather than sitting in rigid terror had done wonders to moderate his speed. The rolling hills offered lovely views around them, but the longer they drove the more the arm below him stiffened.

They left the motorway and skirted around the edge of a middling sized town. Aziraphale looked around with more attention. The town wasn't much to look at, and Aziraphale didn't recognize it at first. He turned to look at Crowley to ask where they were going and saw his hand white knuckled on the wheel. 

"Crowley?"

"Mmmmm?"

"What's the matter, my dear?"

"Nothing. There's nothing the matter, why should there be something the matter?" 

Aziraphale was going to try another approach to calm him down when the road crested the rise. To one side the land dropped away sharply. Near the cliffside sat a neat cottage. One that he had often thought of over the years. The Bentley rolled to a gentle stop in front of it. Crowley didn't move to get out, but sat looking at it.

"Do you remember that month?" he asked, his voice very soft, hand still gripping the wheel.

"Every moment." 

Crowley looked at him sidelong. "I thought we were making something here. But as soon as we were back in London you had become so stiff again. I had thought…"

"Gabriel. He showed up almost as soon as I got back. I still had your note in my hand." He looked down at his hands, held in front of him. "But we were making something. Something beautiful. It just took a bit longer yet."

Crowley leaned into him then, and pulled him in tightly. He tried to return the embrace, but it was awkward in the car. Crowley pulled back first, and got out, coming around to open his door as well. "In that case, come on then." He turned towards the house.

"Did you rent it?" Aziraphale felt his heart swell at the gesture. How nice it would be to visit the place again.

"Nnnnnnnn. Not exactly." Crowley pulled keys from his pocket and headed to the door. Aziraphale followed.

"You bought it? When?" He looked through the door. Everything he could see was just as it had been. His gaze swept the small first room. The pegs where their coats had hung, the hearth, even the same settle dominating the center of the room. Crowley stood with his fingers in his pockets.

"A few days after we left. Was going to be a surprise."

Aziraphale blinked at the moisture in his eyes. "Well, I'm sure the delay has only made it more surprising." Crowley smiled and moved to go inside but Aziraphale stopped him. 

"You were unconscious when I first brought you back here. I think though, that we should go in the same way we did that night." He said.

"What do you… Ngk!" Crowley let out a strangled sound as Aziraphale lifted him into his arms. The weight in his arms felt like home. He carried Crowley into the cottage again, smiling into each other's eyes. 

He set him on his feet inside. "I believe," he said, sliding his hands up Crowley's sides from where he had held him, "that there is a tradition for moments like these."

"So there is," he answered, his hands cupping Aziraphale's face and sending shivers through him. "Wouldn't want to break with tradition." 

When their lips came together, it was like spring sunshine. Soft and warm and lighting him from within. It wasn't the first time they had kissed, but standing here it felt like a promise. An end to every almost, and the beginning of what next.

1 To him anyway, why not even three decades, a veritable blink of the eye.  [ return to text ]

2 Only two trunks worth.  [ return to text ]

3 Another thing he didn't think about was how many of the things he didn't think about were Crowley related. It was amazing how much time he spent thinking about the demon, given how much time he also spent NOT thinking about him.  [ return to text ]

4 Some of those volumes would never make it past the censors.  [ return to text ]

5 Their bodies did not produce the effluvia human bodies did, but the fall had left them a bit the worse for wear.  [ return to text ]

**Author's Note:**

> I Cannot express how Sorry I am to be so very late with this! I stated and scrapped 3 ideas before this one, so I hope I did at least SOME justice to this prompt.
> 
> "Crowley and Aziraphale find themselves snowed in somewhere. (Bonus points if their powers have temporarily stopped working!)"
> 
> Historical note. The Lewes Avalanche was the deadliest Avalanche in UK recorded History. Seven people were rescued and eight died.  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewes_avalanche
> 
> In a move that is very British, they built a pub on the site called "The Snowdrop Inn" which is still there.


End file.
